Dear Inside Community, Our most popular event series is coming back on May 24 and 25, and we want you to be there! Meet Our Fund 3 brings together an all-star lineup of venture capitalists ready to pitch you on what they invest in and how they add value for founders. Register here, and check out the speakers we have already announced. There will be plenty more to come in the weeks ahead. It’s going to be our biggest Meet Our Fund yet. —The Inside Team | |  Stephen |  |
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 After Meta’s rebranding, mentions of the metaverse increased by a factor of four in earnings calls, according to CB Insights. The metaverse could represent a $1T market by the end of the decade, according to the firm’s Industry Analyst Consensus. More: - Given the amount of processing power the metaverse requires, lots of companies are jumping on board to build the hardware necessary to get one running. That gives chip producers good reason to support young metaverse-focused companies.
- To drive their growth, Qualcomm, for example, recently announced the launch of its $100M Snapdragon Metaverse Fund, which will invest in the extended reality space.
- Beyond obvious connections such as gaming and the corresponding hardware such as VR glasses that will be required for metaverse platforms, fintech has a big role to play in making metaverse a monetizable proposition.
- Most big payments platforms such as PayPal and Google Pay have introduced protocols for metaverses, while crypto wallets and NFT platforms like Venly and OpenSea, respectively, have begun teaming up with metaverse-specific companies.
- AR/VR and decentralized games are just two of the experiences the metaverse could offer to consumers.
- In January, for example, AmazeVR raised $15M Series B for its VR concert platform, while both Brand New Vision and DressX raised seed rounds to support their NFT-based fashion items.
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Ava Labs, the company behind the Avalanche blockchain, has reportedly raised $350M at a $5.25B valuation, according to Bloomberg. The round’s backers are not yet known as it has not yet been made public. If the reports are correct, Ava would become one of the world’s most highly valued crypto startups. More: - Founded by Cornell University professor Emin Gun Sirer, Ava most recently raised $230M by selling tokens in a round that was led by Polychain Capital and Three Arrows.
- Prior to that, the company raised $12M in 2020 from Bitmain, Galaxy Digital, and others, which followed up a $6M round in 2019 from Andreessen Horowitz and Polychain.
- With a focus on lower transaction costs and a less wieldy protocol, Avalanche competes with Solana and Ethereum for trading, lending, and game use.
- Its platform currently hosts 250 active apps, many of them in DeFi or gaming. Its ecosystem has a total value of $21.5B.
- The company has 170 employees, according to PitchBook.
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 A message from OUTREACH What Your Executive Team Really Thinks About Your Sales Numbers Your executive team hates surprises, especially when it comes to revenue. Unfortunately, sales forecasts built on guesswork can be inaccurate and put you at risk of delivering surprise outcomes. This has negative consequences across the business for quarters to come, leading to an ever-widening Sales Execution Gap that grows over time. If this invokes anxiety, you’re not alone. Watch this on-demand webinar now to get the inside scoop on how sales execution missteps impact a company’s numbers — and how you can fix it. Outreach’s CFO shares her first-hand view on partnering with sales leaders and leveraging data to drive go-to-market success. When organizations close the Sales Execution Gap and execute at their full potential, they win more deals with less effort and deliver a better customer experience. Watch On-Demand
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 In the wake of India’s decision to ban TikTok and other Chinese apps, homegrown and Western social media platforms have thrived. Bloomberg reports that the country has continued to add Chinese services to its blacklist, which now contains over 200 of them. More: - The beginning of the blacklisting was based on national security grounds and saw 200 million Indian TikTok users suddenly looking for an alternative.
- One of the biggest winners was Josh, a news aggregation site that targets non-English-speaking Indians living outside affluent cities.
- It has more than 150 million monthly active users and 200,000 creators. After TikTok was shut off, it quickly contacted 200 of its top influencers.
- Its parent company VerSe Innovation announced last month it had raised $805M from investors who valued it at $5 billion.
- While U.S. social media champions Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat still command a larger market share than Josh, its founders think that their focus on English-language content will keep them from accessing a big part of the country’s population.
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London-based proptech startup IMMO raised $75M in fresh Series B funding led by Oak HC/FT. Participation came from Moore Speciality Credit and prior investors FinTech Collective and Talis Capital. The company declined to provide a valuation. More: - Immo provides a marketplace for single-family rental (SFR) units. Users can sell and rent properties, but its main purpose is to build scalable residential exposure for investors.
- It claims to analyze $6.5B in properties each month to identify investment opportunities.
- After identifying possible units, team members are sent to inspect each one personally prior to making an offer.
- After the sale is closed, Immo upcycles the SFR properties into modernized homes with lower carbon footprints. They are then offered via their “living-as-a-service” rental platform.
- The company currently has 120 employees operating in London, Hamburg, Cologne, Berlin, Madrid, and Delhi.
- According to Crunchbase, Immo has raised just over $90M to date.
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 A message from KINTONE Did you know only 2.5% of companies complete 100% of their projects? The silver lining: you can be in the top 3% by completing most if not all of your projects, and Kintone can help you get there. Download the free “5 Reasons Projects Fail” ebook to learn about the most common pitfalls project managers face and how to avoid them. You’ll learn about important concepts like: - Defining goals vs. objectives
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 Today’s Funding 💸 AI/ML - Noogata (Tel Aviv, Israel), no-code AI platform: $16M A led by Team8, Inference Partners, participation from Allon Ventures.
Biotech/Health - Surf Bio (Palo Alto, Calif.), in-vitro and in-vivo safety and efficacy data: $16M Seed led by Breakout Ventures, Perceptive Xontogeny Venture Fund.
- 9am.health (San Diego, Calif.), virtual diabetes clinic: $16M A led by 7Wire Ventures, Human Capital.
- Duos (New York, N.Y.), retired person community platform for longevity: ...
Want to read about all of today’s funding in one place? The funding roundup is only available to free users on Mondays and Fridays. Upgrade to Inside VC Premium for either $10/month, or $100 billed annually, to receive the full list in every issue! For a limited time, we are offering a 14-day free trial. Click here to sign up! | | | |
Quick Hits - If your site is struggling, it may be time for a more powerful commerce platform. Read our eBook and find out if your business is ready.*
- VC distributions were down 90%, says Hans Swildens, founder of 22-year-old Industry Ventures, which currently has $5B in AUM. While late-stage rounds are happening, VCs have begun demanding conditions ensuring their returns during a liquidity event.
- Twitter has acquired Dublin-based mobile engagement platform OpenBack for an undisclosed sum.
- Sterling Roads, a San Francisco-based VC firm, raised a third fund at $20M. It will back pre-seed founders of B2B companies that have gone through its coaching program.
- Brex, the corporate spend startup, just launched a new management product called Brex Empower and landed DoorDash as a customer. Faced with an increasingly crowded field, the company is pushing upmarket to tackle bigger clients.
*This is a sponsored post.
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Upcoming events at Inside - April 14 - Shopping In The Metaverse (Register Here)
- April 21 - Hear how you can begin to identify potential threats for SMBs (featuring Electric, datto, and ksm) (Register Here) *
- April 26 - Need To Know NoCoder - Gautam Nimmagadda (Quixy) (Register Here)
- April 28 - Alternative Investments 2: Crypto Safety Standards (Register Here)
- May 12 - Making Metaverse Dating a Reality (Register Here)
- May 18 - Need To Know NoCoder: Jatin Arora (Utilize) (Register Here)
- May 19 - Understanding Fractionalization (Register Here)
- May 24 - Meet Our Fund 3 (Register Here)
- May 31 - Ethereum Merge with Anthony Donofrio (Ethereum) (Register Here)
- June 01 - Selling Consumer Goods in Web3 (Register Here)
- June 09 - Empowering Content Creators with No Code (Register Here)
*This is a sponsored post.
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 |  | Inside VC's writer/curator Stephen currently lives in Berlin and is pursuing a Master's degree in philosophy. He otherwise spends his time trying his hand at recipes from India and Southeast Asia, escaping it all at the kickboxing gym, and offending aural sensibilities with his band. | | | | Editor | Aaron Crutchfield is based in the high desert of California. Over the last two decades, he has spent time writing and editing at various local newspapers and defense contractors in California. When he's not working, he can often be found looking at the latest memes with his kids or working on his 1962 Ford. | |
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